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Chapter 2

The years had passed Albus Dumbledore in a blur, it started on Christmas morning several years ago when the monitoring devices he used to keep track of his young charge each burst into fine silver dust. Upon this discovery he had visited the home he had placed young Harry in a scant five years before, there he found a young family just sitting down to unwrap presents in the early morning hours.

The father's name was Vernon, a large man, but not in a healthy way, no he was short, mostly bald, and very wide. While his wife was a slight woman matching him in height, with a long drawn face that somehow reminded him of a horse. Then there was their son Dudley, where they had found that name he did not know; he was short and growing large much like his father.

"Good morning, I need to speak to you about your nephew," he said standing in the doorway, in his finest muggle attire.

"And who would you be?" said the horse faced woman, Petunia he reminded himself.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, I am headmaster at the school that your sister attended," he said in his grandfatherly tone, his blue eyes twinkling in the morning sun.

"Oh, so you are one of those freaks!" came the surly voice of Vernon. "Get away, we want nothing to do with your kind. It was bad enough that you left that brat here!" he said barging toward the door.

"He is the reason I am here!" he said, not liking one bit what he was hearing. "Is he here? May I speak with him, please?"

"He's not here! He was gone when we got up this morning, and I say good riddance! I'll not have any more of his freakishness in this house!" Slamming his foot down for emphasis, the man declared, "He made the choice, this is no longer his home!"

The door swung shut with a bang, leaving a much bewildered headmaster standing on the front step. From that day he had looked for the young man. During the school breaks he traveled, using any and all information he could find through the other positions he held in the wizarding world, as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Both of which he had only held onto with the barest of margins of recent date because of the increasing demand for answers he did not have.

No he had become increasingly more frantic to find the boy in recent years. Questions began in earnest four years before when Harry did not arrive to begin his schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many of the families had known the Potters and Harry's age, and as he was seen as an icon, being the only known survivor of the killing curse and the vanquisher of Lord Voldemort, one of the most feared Dark Lords, so he was expected.

Albus had put their fears to rest, saying that he was being trained away from the spotlight as would be his parents' wish, and he would return to them at a later year. Meanwhile he searched on, and distracted by his search he had made a series of poor decisions, and costly oversights.

Early in the year that Harry should have begun Hogwarts, on Halloween, the professor of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class announced to the school that a troll, a 13 foot grey skinned mountain of spell resistant destruction, had entered the castle. Before it was over a young girl had been seriously injured. Just how seriously was never revealed to her or her parents, only he and the Matron of the hospital wing knew, though he thought that was working out well. After a long talk with her she had been re-sorted into a new house at the school and seemed much happier.

The first crisis of the year had been averted, the next… Well it had been a serious lack of judgment to try and hide such a valuable artifact in a school. He had been asked to oversee the protection of an old friend's most valued possession, the Philosophers Stone, a stone having properties used at the highest levels of Alchemy. While the changing of lead to gold was both too expensive and time consuming to be worth doing, its other primary use was one many would give everything for, the Elixir of Life.

The Elixir could extend one's life indefinitely, heal the greatest of injuries, even return life to those that were the smallest of hairs from death. But, unknown to most, unless the stone had been created by the person, or in this case couple, that used it, it could only heal you once. As it had the young student that All Hallows Eve.

At the end of the year an attempt had been made to steal the artifact, luckily he had managed to delay the thief long enough with the final obstacle to arrive and thwart him. It had been a possessed professor, someone he had once called a friend and colleague. Looking back at it he could see the oddities in the way he behaved, but he had overlooked them to his shame. The night had ended in the friend's death as the spirit form of Lord Voldemort had fled, leaving the man drained of his magic and dying on the floor of the room. It had led to a small investigation, nothing of consequence, as it appeared that the man's heart had just given out, but now Albus knew the truth. Voldemort had survived, although in a horrible state. The search for his charge was even more important.

The next year could have been the most dangerous of any since the war's end, but they had been exceptionally lucky. A young girl from a family he knew well had somehow obtained a journal that was enchanted with the darkest of magic. If she had not come from such a close family, and had she not heeded her father's advice about magical artifacts that seem… alive, things could have ended in tragedy - as it was the object had been safely gathered, warded and stored away, Albus had promised himself he would look more closely into it when he had found his young charge.

Then last year things had come to a head, the man that he and others believed had betrayed the Potters had escaped Azkaban, the wizard prison. This led to a nation-wide manhunt that even included muggle resources, as they had been alerted to the escape by the Minister for Magic.

This had led to massive problems for the Headmaster. Dementors, the spectral visions of death that guarded the prison were used to hunt the man. They had even boarded the train on its way to the school, leaving the majority of those on board in a sorry, frightened state (he shuddered to think what may have happened if Remus Lupin, the man he had asked to take the Defense against the Dark Arts professorship, had not been on board). Then the Dementors had been stationed around the school to keep Sirius Black, the escapee, out. This had also proved to be a near disaster, fortunately thwarted.

As it turned out, Black did make his way to the school, and after a few attempts, was able to capture the true betrayer of the Potters, presenting him to Albus and the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Madam Bones, after calling her himself from the barricaded office of the Deputy Headmistress. The real traitor, Peter Pettigrew, was proven to be an illegal shape shifter, an Animagus; he later escaped before they could transport him to DMLE headquarters.

Lupin had been a close friend of the Potters and Blacks and had been asked to teach both because he was a potential target and for his talents as a professor. Sadly by the end of the year Albus could no longer keep him on, as the fact that he was also a werewolf was made public. The two old friends had been rejoined and their thoughts soon turned to Harry.

As soon as Sirius was exonerated at his trial, a mere formality as Madam Bones had said they all three had turned up on Albus's doorstep demanding answers. Albus ended up with an aching jaw, courtesy of Sirius, after saying he had left Harry at the Dursley home, and a slap and ringing ears from Madam Bones for the way he had done it. As for Lupin, he walked away, the beast inside him was far too close to the surface; if it had not been for years of training his self-control Dumbledore would have been dead at his feet.

The realization that the sister of Harry's mother Lily hated her was a bitter pill to swallow for Albus, he just could not understand the hate that Sirius told him of and that Petunia and Vernon were capable of toward their own family, their own blood.

Albus explained that he did what he felt was best, as there was no will found, he had to do something and he felt that it was best that Harry be placed with family. Then he used ancient Blood Wards he had tied to Petunia and Harry so that the boy would be safe there and the blood of his mother's family would protect him, hiding him away while their world healed.

At this Sirius scoffed, then produced the will. He had had a copy safe in his vault at Gringotts, just as the Potters had, and he would have produced it along with the evidence of the betrayal by Peter if he had ever been given a trial. Thus began the downward spiral of Dumbledore's popularity once Sirius had taken over the powerful Black family fortune.

After that they had gone separate ways, Sirius and Remus with Madam Bones' help, began their own search, and Albus started to formulate a new plan. One that led him to this day.

This year an old tradition was being reintroduced, one not seen for many years, the Tri-Wizard Championship, a contest between the greatest schools in Europe for honor and glory, for the right to claim having the strongest, bravest, smartest of the new generation come from their halls.

The contestants were to be chosen by a magical artifact, the Tri-Wizard Cup, a semi-intelligent artifact of amazing design. Albus had it housed in his office prior to its being placed in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, giving him months to study it and formulate his plan.

The night before the choosing ceremony, he went to work on the then lit, therefore active, Cup. Working quickly he soon placed into it an enchanted note with a lone name. The next day names were drawn from the cup:

Cedric Diggory: Hogwarts, Hufflepuff House

Victor Krum: Durmstrang Institute

Fleur Delacour: Beauxbatons Academy of Magic

Then a fourth name fluttered down after the cup sputtered a final time.

Harry Potter

The room had gone silent, people looking around trying to find the wizard hero. To their disappointment he could not be found.

Once the news was in the paper things took on a life of their own, speculation ran rampant, and meanwhile a small group gave a large piece of their minds to an old man leaving no doubt if they found out that this was his doing there would be hell to pay.

So here he sat on the morning of the first task, completely unsure of what to do. No sign of the boy had been found, all he could do was hope the way he had interpreted the Cup's contract was to be fulfilled was correct. Nervous, he made his way to the area that had been planned for the first event.